Battle of the blue: Blue Demons look for redemption against Bluejays

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Eli Cain (11), Marin Maric (34), Tre’Darius McCallum (10), Max Strus (31) celebrate their first conference home win of the season. (Mason Rippel | The DePaulia)

After an emotional home win against Marquette on Saturday afternoon, the DePaul Blue Demon men’s basketball team (11-17; 4-12) heads west to do battle with the Creighton Bluejays (20-9; 9-7) on Tuesday at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Neb.

The game has an 8 p.m. start time with Fox Sports 1 and WIND 560 AM handling the television and radio broadcasting duties respectively. This is the 34th all-time meeting between the two teams with the Bluejays holding a slight 17-16 advantage.

For the first time this season in Big East play, the Blue Demons head into a road trip after a home game with a winning streak. The game against Marquette Saturday snapped a 14-game losing streak in conference games dating back to December of last season and marked the first occasion that the Blue Demons have won a conference game at home at Wintrust Arena.

Last time the two teams met, Bluejays senior Marcus Foster hit a 3-point field goal with 16 seconds remaining in the game to give Creighton a one-point cushion. On the following possession, the Bluejays stripped the ball from DePaul junior guard Max Strus as the Blue Demons fell 76-75. Graduate senior center Marin Maric poured in 23 points, convincingly dominating the paint and junior guard Eli Cain had 18 points on 5-for-7 from the field and dished out six assists to only one turnover in one of his more all around complete games of the Big East schedule.

Creighton quietly sits in a four-way tie for third place in the Big East behind Xavier and Villanova respectively. They enter the game Tuesday with a wave of momentum that predictably comes with an 89-83 overtime win against then No. 3 Villanova. The Bluejays started Big East play winning four of their first five games, but have been up and down since as they haven’t had a winning or losing streak longer than two games since that hot start.

Foster continues to pace the Bluejays with 20 points per game on an efficient 49 percent from the field and 43.4 percent from behind the 3-point line. The Bluejays can score the ball, averaging 85 points per contest which is the ninth-best mark in the NCAA. They score efficiently as well, shooting at a 50.1 percent clip from the field and a 37.8 percent clip from behind the 3-point line. When the numbers are boiled down in a more advanced manner, the Bluejays offense is the 23rd best in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency according to Ken Pomeroy rankings and statistics.

But it isn’t like the Blue Demons haven’t seen this level of offense before. For starters, they played Creighton competitively earlier in the season, and even though Creighton has the 23rd most efficient offense in the country per Ken Pomeroy, Villanova, Xavier, Marquette, Butler, and Seton Hall respectively are all ahead of them in this statistic. In matchups against these six teams this season (includes Creighton), DePaul has held these teams below their season averages in points six out of ten times.

Like they did against Marquette on Saturday, the Blue Demons can gain an advantage over the Bluejays on the offensive boards. The Blue Demons are a good rebounding team because they rebound at all five positions, including at the guard position with Brandon Cyrus and Cain combining for seven rebounds per contest. The Blue Demons are tied for the conference lead (with Seton Hall) with 12.5 offensive rebounds per game, while Creighton is last with 7.2 per game. Big man Martin Krampelj is also out for the season with an injury and had averaged 8.1 rebounds per game this season.

With an at-large NCCA Tournament bid obviously out of the question, the Blue Demons play for pride and momentum as they work through their final two regular season games before the Big East Tournament which begins March 7.